'Remarkable restraint after 26/11': US author praises Manmohan Singh amid Israel-Hamas war

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman, who has been cautioning Israel not to get trapped in a prolonged war deep inside Gaza, has praised India's former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for not carrying out any military retaliation after the Mumbai attack in 2008. 

Friedman wants Israel to finish the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas but is against the ground invasion of Gaza, which is densely populated and is home to two million Palestinians. He fears that a ground invasion of Gaza will draw Israel into 'urban warfare', which favours those who know the terrain well - and in this case, it is Hamas. He also thinks that it may take longer than expected for Israel to capture and kill Hamas militants and the civil casualties during that time may turn the sentiments against Tel Aviv.

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"I am watching the Israel-Hamas war and thinking about one of the world leaders I've most admired: Manmohan Singh," Friedman wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times. The author said that Singh was India's prime minister in late November 2008 when 10 Pakistani jihadist militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba group killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, including 61 at two luxury hotels. "What was Singh's military response to India’s Sept. 11? He did nothing."

The renowned columnist said that the former Indian prime minister never retaliated militarily against Pakistan or Lashkar camps in Pakistan. "It was a remarkable act of restraint." He then extensively quoted India’s foreign secretary at the time Shivshankar Menon, who himself "pressed for immediate visible retaliation" against the terrorist bases or against Pakistani military intelligence but realised in hindsight that the decision to not retaliate was the right one.  

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Friedman said that Menon in his book "Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy” states that military retaliation "would have been emotionally satisfying and gone some way toward erasing the shame of the incompetence that India’s police and security agencies displayed". "But on sober reflection and in hindsight, I now believe that the decision not to retaliate militarily and to concentrate on diplomatic, covert, and other means was the right one for that time and place."

The author said that Menon's conclusion was that any military response would have quickly obscured just how terrible the attack on Indian civilians and tourists was. Also, Menon wrote, that an Indian attack on Pakistan would have united Pakistan behind the Pakistan Army, which was in increasing domestic disrepute. 

"An attack on Pakistan would also have weakened the civilian government in Pakistan, which had just been elected to power and which sought a much better relationship with India than the Pakistan Army was willing to consider." Menon continued, "A war scare, and maybe even a war itself was exactly what the Pakistan Army wanted to buttress its internal position."

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Friedman further wrote that Menon said even a successful war against Pakistan would have imposed costs and set back the progress of the Indian economy just when the world economy was in an unprecedented financial crisis in 2008. 

Drawing a comparison, the US commentator said that Israel's economy is already predicted to shrink more than 10 per cent and the cost of occupying Gaza could overstretch the Israeli military and economy for years to come. 

Friedman said he closely followed Manmohan Singh's "unique reaction" to the Mumbai terrorist attack and that was why he immediately advocated a much more targeted, fully thought-through response by Israel. 

In another piece published on October 19, the US author said that Israel would be making a terrible mistake if it entered Gaza. "If Israel rushes headlong into Gaza now to destroy Hamas - and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seek a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority and end Jewish settlements deep in the West Bank - it will be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for Israeli interests and American interests.